Typical systems and methods for electronically entering characters include the use of standard keyboards such a QWERTY keyboard and the like. However, as modern electronic devices have become smaller, new methods have been developed in order to enter desired characters.
On such method is to use a multi-press system on a standard telephonic numeric keypad, whereby multiple alphanumeric characters are assigned to the same key. One drawback with such a system is that it requires multiple pressing of single keys in order to enter certain characters, thereby increasing the overall number of key presses, slowing the character entry process.
A second method to accommodate the entering of characters on the ever smaller devices has been to simply miniaturize the standard QWERTY keypad onto the devices. However, such miniaturized keypads are often clumsy and do not afford sufficient space between the keys, causing multiple key presses when only a single press is desired.
Yet another attempt to accommodate the entering of characters on smaller electronic devices, is the use of voice recognition software. Such methods have been in use for some time, but suffer from a number of drawbacks. Most notably, voice recognition software suffers from the inability to distinguish homonyms, and often requires significant advance input for the system to recognize a particular speaker, their mannerisms and speech habits. Also, voice recognition software, in attempting to alleviate these problems, has grown large and requires a good deal of processing, not particularly suitable for the limited energy and processing capabilities of smaller electronic devices, such a mobile phones and text pagers.